A New SUV and Standardized Testing!
My brother is a lucky son of a gun. Buys a lottery ticket, spends the prize money before the draw, and sure enough his numbers hit! He's generous to a fault and-- Happy Birthday to me --a brand new blue Durango rolls into my laneway.
"Hey, bro," says my bro, "Gotcha a present." He got one for himself, too.
Makes my old Chevy look like an old farm truck. Which it is, or was, 'cause the wife says, "No sense in keeping both of 'em."
Good-bye old Chev! Our boy has it now, still hauling and being a fine old truck. But he's miles away. No one, or their truck, sticks around anymore.
The Durango is sweet, no doubt about it. A/C front and back and cold enough to chill a Bud or six! Radio from outer space and more speakers than all the parliaments of Europe. Leather here and there and here again just for good measure. DVD in the back seat. Rides great.
But it isn't exactly useful to me. I don't go to town much. And when I do, it's to pick up dusty or sharp things which are hell on leather--unless the leather is still breathing! The back of my Durango is no place for firewood, barbed-wire, shovels or a chainsaw, my hunting boots or my hunting dog.
It is a great vehicle for my brother, a gentrified city boy with gentrified tastes. Just the finest hand picked groceries, in paper bags. Golf clubs, titanium and detailed weekly. Golf shoes in a smart leather case.
What's this got to do with standardized testing? Standardized Testing has to test Standardized Education. Well, I was thinking. What if these bureaucratic geniuses picked a Durango education for your kid, when what would be useful to him would be an old Chevy farm truck?
My brother meant well. So do the geniuses at the DoE and NEA. That doesn't get my firewood from the woods. And it won't help your kid to be forced down a school path which ultimately leads him nowhere.
Parents, though few of us are geniuses (all of those, apparently, work for Uncle Sam!) are best equipped to know what their kids are interested in, and what they should know. Sure, we'll consult teachers and learned men , er, people, but we ought not to be forced into an education for our own good, like we are simpletons.
Well, back to the Durango. Got a little mud on the tires and it looks like Pavarotti in a rumpled suit. Time to wash it. I washed my Chevy twice, the first day I had it and... That's another story.
In the mean time, I need to borrow a truck to move some firewood!
"Hey, bro," says my bro, "Gotcha a present." He got one for himself, too.
Makes my old Chevy look like an old farm truck. Which it is, or was, 'cause the wife says, "No sense in keeping both of 'em."
Good-bye old Chev! Our boy has it now, still hauling and being a fine old truck. But he's miles away. No one, or their truck, sticks around anymore.
The Durango is sweet, no doubt about it. A/C front and back and cold enough to chill a Bud or six! Radio from outer space and more speakers than all the parliaments of Europe. Leather here and there and here again just for good measure. DVD in the back seat. Rides great.
But it isn't exactly useful to me. I don't go to town much. And when I do, it's to pick up dusty or sharp things which are hell on leather--unless the leather is still breathing! The back of my Durango is no place for firewood, barbed-wire, shovels or a chainsaw, my hunting boots or my hunting dog.
It is a great vehicle for my brother, a gentrified city boy with gentrified tastes. Just the finest hand picked groceries, in paper bags. Golf clubs, titanium and detailed weekly. Golf shoes in a smart leather case.
What's this got to do with standardized testing? Standardized Testing has to test Standardized Education. Well, I was thinking. What if these bureaucratic geniuses picked a Durango education for your kid, when what would be useful to him would be an old Chevy farm truck?
My brother meant well. So do the geniuses at the DoE and NEA. That doesn't get my firewood from the woods. And it won't help your kid to be forced down a school path which ultimately leads him nowhere.
Parents, though few of us are geniuses (all of those, apparently, work for Uncle Sam!) are best equipped to know what their kids are interested in, and what they should know. Sure, we'll consult teachers and learned men , er, people, but we ought not to be forced into an education for our own good, like we are simpletons.
Well, back to the Durango. Got a little mud on the tires and it looks like Pavarotti in a rumpled suit. Time to wash it. I washed my Chevy twice, the first day I had it and... That's another story.
In the mean time, I need to borrow a truck to move some firewood!
posted by wheatington at 10:27 AM
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